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      Virtue’s heart was broken. Two choices lay before him: He could let himself be taken as spoils of war and eventually be eaten by humans, or he could let the woman he loved be found out for rescuing him and let her die.

      She knew what he was thinking. She looked into his eyes searchingly. She gulped and forced a smile. Virtue said to her, “come with me! You can live with me and my family.”

      “Humans can’t live up there without masks, Virtue. How will I feed myself up there? How will I drink?” Trisha reminded him hopelessly.

      “We’ll figure it out. Don’t you think it’s worth a chance? Don’t you want to love me for as long as you will live?” Virtue swept her dirty hair out of her face and placed a hand on her tear-streaked cheek.

      Trisha knew that anything was better than living a life below ground where she was abused and lived among men who jeered at her looks. She nodded silently.

  ***

      Trisha knew the ins and outs of the underground compound belonging to the Power clan. She also knew the quickest ways to get in and out.

      Angels were incredibly light creatures; they weighed less than twenty pounds. Trisha told him to get into a big barrel where they kept food.

       Trisha told the chief of her unit that another human would take over her shift of watching the Angel while she stretched her legs and went to scavenge for food above ground. There were prescribed times of day when humans went scavenging. Trisha picked the midday shift in which nine of her unit would accompany her.

      She wheeled the barrel through the dark, underlit, rocky passageways while she and ten others of her unit headed up to the surface.

      It was only a matter of time before the chief of her unit would find no one guarding the Angel and that the Angel was, in fact, gone.

      Her palms were drenched in sweat the whole time as she wheeled the barrel to the surface.

      They eventually arrived at a deadend in the underground compound. Above them was the cap barring the surface from the underground.

      They had their gas masks on as they pushed the cap bearing the insignia of their clan away from the hole blocking the way to the surface. Trisha climbed out first and had to rely another human who climbed up after her to help her lift the barrel out after her.

      The brown dust on the surface was blowing about like crazy and obscuring Trisha on the surface.

      The rest of the unit had smaller buckets. The unit would split up usually and go searching for food in different directions and fill their smaller buckets with food to add to the giant barrel.

      Trisha hoped beyond hope that they would not notice the added weight of Virtue as they passed her the barrel.

      Two men below who were still underground hoisted it up to her, and the human at her side helped her to haul it to the surface.

      But she froze in terror once they had the barrel on the surface and the human beside her stated, “the barrel feels a little heavier. Is there something in it?’

      The only natural thing for Trisha to say was, “really? I wasn’t sure it felt any heavier.”

      She rested her hand on the gun at her side. She was tense and fearful under her suffocating gas mask.

      As the rest of the group was climbing up, the human at Trisha’s side slowly lifted the lid off of the barrel.

      Trisha whipped out her gun and shot the human in the head. She yelled to Virtue, “run!”

      The Angel spread his wings and flew out of the barrel. He joined Trisha as she disappeared behind the brown dirt whirling in the air.

      The nine humans left behind were bewildered, but they knew they had to shoot both Trisha and the Angel down. They set off through the dirt storm after the two runaways.

      Trisha and Virtue ran as fast as their legs could carry them. But through the dirt storm, a bullet whizzed past Virtue’s head. Trisha shot backwards with her gun and her bullet met its mark even with the dirt obscuring her opponent.

      Eight more bullets flew their way. Only one grazed Trisha’s shoulder. Virtue and Trisha were still too obscured for the other humans to get a clear shot.

      Trisha growled a little from the pain of the bullet grazing her shoulder. She saw a head peak out of the swirling dirt and she shot it at a moment’s notice.

      Trisha had fought long and hard to become such a good shot. It was incredibly difficult for her to best a man in physical combat, and so she concentrated on being the best shot in the entire underground compound and only came up second to the boss in charge of the Powder clan.

      Now, all seven remaining humans were hot on Trisha’s and Virtue’s heels. They had the pair in their sights.

      Trisha glanced backwards as they readied their aim. She yelled to Virtue, “get down!”

      Trisha dropped into a roll as did Virtue, and bullets that would have met their mark flew above their heads instead.

      Trisha took aim quickly and shot six of the humans who were encircling them with lightning speed and deft aim. She had to reload now, however, and simply had no time to do it before the last human would shoot her.

      Trisha scrambled to her feet and tried to run—but a bullet buried its way into her side. She cried out in pain and stumbled. The last human caught up to her as she fell on all fours. He kicked her down and stepped on her stomach. He pointed the gun at her face.

      Virtue tackled the man before he could shoot Trisha. The shot missed Trisha’s head by an inch thanks to his actions.

      Taking the man by surprise, Virtue seized his gun and pulled the trigger.

      He tossed the gun aside—Angels hated those things—and quickly knelt by Trisha’s side. She was losing blood fast, and he knew she was going to die. Virtue held her head in his lap. He had tears in his eyes as he smoothed her dirty tangles backwards and out of her face.

      “Don’t cry… You gave me my virtue back… My body, my heart, my head, my soul… They were not sacred anymore when it was taken. But you have given my dignity back to me, by allowing me to love you and help you escape. I can die with a sacred body now.” Her eyes glazed over as she thumbed away one of his tears, and then her arm went lank.

      Virtue sobbed uncontrollably and touched his forehead to hers. He seemed to cry one thousand tears from his one thousand eyes that sprinkled onto Trisha’s face.

      “And what about me? What of my virtue? I can never have it back. I was only made sacred again thanks to you. You gave me something genuine and real that washed away the ruin done to my body. I was awakened to something that no one else could have awakened me to. Don’t leave me here alone, fitting in with neither Angel nor human.” He wrapped his arms around her and through bitter sobbing, gently kissed her on the lips.

      And something happened then that he never would have guessed. She opened her eyes and kissed him back for what seemed the final time. Gold light surrounded and sprang from her body as she kissed him. At first, her features were visible; in a moment, she seemed to shift into a teardrop made of gold, and the teardrop flew into Virtue’s eye and became his one thousand and one eye that was made of gold.

      He felt warm. So warm and happy he thought he might burst from joy. It seemed to him that, a moment before, he was alone in the manmade ruin of the dirt laden plains. A moment later, it felt as if he would never be alone again.

      “I am here with you,” she said to him, “and I always will be.”

       

  The End

 
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